Changing attitudes with our 'Positive Masculinity' workshops
Although the Lotus Flower primarily supports women and girls, we fundamentally believe that men and boys have a crucial role to play in advancing gender equality and bringing real change for everyone.
For that reason, our trained psychologist Alind has been busy conducting ‘Positive Masculinity’ workshops with male IDPs and refugees, which are aimed at raising awareness and shifting traditional perceptions around women’s roles in society, helping end harmful behaviours against them.
The sessions are designed to celebrate the positive aspects of being male, and show that masculinity can be empowering rather than restrictive or abusive. The participants work together to learn how they can support women and girls, and cooperate much more fully to improve their own lives, as well as those of their families.
The workshops are taking place at all three Lotus Flower centres until the end of the year, and are especially focused on eliminating gender-based violence, which is sadly still all too common within family settings. Other topics explored include ideas around masculinity itself, and what it means to be a modern-day man.
So far, the sessions have received a hugely positive response from the men and boys taking part, and there have been many productive and fruitful discussions. Fuad, a 24-year-old Yazidi IDP says the workshops have helped him re-evaluate his own domestic responsibilities. “Now I help my family with things like cooking and cleaning,” he says. “And I feel better when I talk to them about my problems.”
Decades of war and conflict in Iraq have only served to cement tropes of oppression and violence against women and girls, and the ISIS atrocities of 2014 made things much worse. In addition, boys have tended to grow up believing that a women’s role is based purely around subservience and domesticity, meaning females are frequently excluded from educational and employment opportunities, as well as all areas of public life.
It is our hope that our work on Positive Masculinity will go a long way to helping change things for the better…